Is composed mainly of silt, sand, gravel, and clay that washed off the face of the Rocky Mountains and other sources over the last several million years

Is one of the primary sources of water for agriculture

Is one of the fastest depleting aquifers

Was thought to be inexhaustible by irrigation pioneers

Has shrunk by 9 percent

Has typical declines of 50-150 feet in southwest and west-central Kansas

Has varying rates of recharge and drawdown, depending on location because of aquifer depth and natural thickness

Has declined by 50-100 feet in the past ten years in several southwest Kansas wells.

Kansas Water Law

Water is a public resource dedicated to the use of the people of the state.

According to the law, when there is insufficient water to meet all water rights, the date of the water right determines who has the right to use the water.

This doctrine is commonly expressed as "First in time, first in right."

Explore Kansas' water use on two interactive maps created by The Hutchinson News. See the change in depth to water over the last 10 years in more than 2,000 wells monitored by the Kansas Geological Survey and other agencies. The tabs at the top of the map to switch to another map showing more than 43,000 water rights and points of diversion. Filters on the right of either map to apply filters such as county, aquifer, river basin, crop and more.

Related Content

Everyone knew the open, treeless High Plains wasn’t a place to put down roots. Making a home, farming, and development takes water, and in Western Kansas it’s arid and rainfall is in short supply. Enter the grand idea of irrigation.

The ag world is gearing up to feed 9 billion people, but the Ogallala Aquifer sprawling under the surface of eight Midwestern states is going down the drain. In fact, in some places, it’s gone reported Amy Bickel for Kansas Agland.

State officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are re-evaluating a seminal 1982 federal water supply study that proposed transporting billions of gallons annually from the Missouri River to farms 375 miles away stated a recent article in Circle of Blue.

Even though it’s 2014, for Jerry and Diane McReynolds they live like it’s the 1800s. The McReynolds’ domestic well in Rooks County, Kansas, went dry in October 2013. The couple are members of Rural Water District No. 3, but service is not reliable, especially during the day reported Tim Unruh for the Salina Journal.

In 1960 just 3 percent of the Ogallala aquifer under Western Kansas had been tapped. By 2010 it was 30 percent. By 2060 it will be 69 percent. And once depleted, it will take 500-1,300 years to completely refill. These projections are all from a recently issued, comprehensive, four year study from Kansas State University.

One thing that mixes into the Kansas water debate is where you live. I have a neighbor from eastern Kansas who works hard to get things that grow wild in pastures of her childhood home to simply survive in her western Kansas flower bed.

Life requires water. In Texas the surface water, owned by the state, is drying or dried up, and everyone from farmers to politicians are looking underground to make up the state’s growing water deficit according to the Texas Tribune.